Almost there...

We're all in the final throes of preparing for this year's CT AIDS Bike Tour (CABT). Food, accomodations, press events, route marking, you name it, we're doing it!!

I've got about 12 cases of water sitting on my front porch reading to load for each day so our riders will be well-hydrated as they begin what is to me, the super-human day-to-day cycling of anywhere between 25 miles or, for the hearty folks who are doing all 5 days, about 450 miles of bike riding. It's all to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in CT and raise funds for 14 agencies who help to organize the tour.

It's a grand undertaking and every single person involved has their own story about why they do this "work", why the bike tour matters to them and what this all means to each of us.

At our final Bike Tour planning meeting, I shared this quote with the group (it had come to me on my way to the meeting). It's from Vito Russo, an author, AIDS Activist, and person living with AIDS:

In 1988, he said: "AIDS is a test of who we are as a people… Remember that someday the AIDS crisis will be over. And when that day has come and gone there will be people alive on this earth—gay and straight people, Black people and white people, men and women—who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease, and that a group of people stood up and fought and in some cases died so that others might live and be free."

Each person involved in the CT AIDS Bike Tour is one of those people who will be able to look back and say to their kids, friends, families that not only did they do something; they did great things...and the bike tour is one of the things that will have made a difference in the lives of people with HIV/AIDS and made (and continues to make) a difference in this world. It's a honor to walk side-by-side with each of those people.

Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted.

Peace,
Shawn